Some sports baffle me. As the headline reveals, Stephen Lee, the only British semi-finalist in the Asian Players Tour Championship Event 2, won the final yesterday against Ding Junhui (in cracking style) to grab the trophy not many people outside of snooker know about. But why does he, and many more of England, Scotland and Wales’ “bubbling under” players get to take part?

It’s not unique to snooker – I recently had that same question in my mind when Australia’s Simon Whitlock won the European Championship in darts. I’m not sure if he was the only non-European, but I start to wonder what the point is in a European competition if you’re allowed an Australian to enter, much like Stephen Lee’s entry into the Asian competition confuses me.

Even so, it was a great tournament for him and he bags the prize. Not such good news for England’s male cricketers, who suffered a torrid start to their batting and were at 0-2 after three balls! Ouch. The women did much better and seem to be a good pick for the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 trophy.

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Thursday’s Top Performers

Picture from World Snooker

* Stephen Lee – Star player yesterday too, he’s here again for winning the Asian PTC event, whitewashing Junhui 4-0.
* Ronnie Baxter – Darts player takes this week’s final group of Championship League with a tense final.
* England’s women cricket team – Defeated Pakistan in style in their opening game.
* Jamie Bonsels – Both he and Joshua Green went through qualifying without dropping a set, Jamie edges it with his scores.
* Scotland hockey team – Beat Gibraltar 5-0 to get a strong grip on the top of the table.

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Cricket: ICC World Twenty20

Super Eights Group 1
England lost to West Indies by 15 runs, 164-4 to 179-5